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In Honor of Oliver Stanton, Senior Vice President of Trammo, Inc.
8 DECEMBER 2014 |
8 DECEMBER 2014
This month’s featured essay is Rabbi Dr. Marc D. Angel’s “Models of Sephardic Rabbinic Leadership” (2011).
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Rabbi Marc Angel
Born into Seattle’s Jewish community, Marc Angel is the son of Sephardim from Ottoman Turkey and Rhodes. In 1969, he began serving as rabbi of New York’s historic Congregation Shearith Israel: the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue, where he is now rabbi emeritus. The founder and director of the Institute for Jewish Ideas and Ideals, Rabbi Angel has written and edited 30 books, ranging from scholarly studies of the Jewish philosophical and rabbinic traditions to original short stories and novels. A strong voice for traditional yet cosmopolitan Judaism and a Haver haIr (literally: “friend of the city”), he has helped build institutions such as the American Sephardi Federation and Sephardi House. The legacy of the latter lives on as ASF’s imprint, in ASF’s New York Sephardi Film Festival (now in its 18th year), and the name of our physical home at the landmark Center for Jewish History. |
Born into Seattle’s Jewish community, Marc Angel is the son of Sephardim from Ottoman Turkey and Rhodes. In 1969, he began serving as rabbi of New York’s historic Congregation Shearith Israel: the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue, where he is now rabbi emeritus. The founder and director of the Institute for Jewish Ideas and Ideals, Rabbi Angel has written and edited 30 books, ranging from scholarly studies of the Jewish philosophical and rabbinic traditions to original short stories and novels. A strong voice for traditional yet cosmopolitan Judaism and a Haver haIr (literally: “friend of the city”), he has helped build institutions such as the American Sephardi Federation and Sephardi House. The legacy of the latter lives on as ASF’s imprint, in ASF’s New York Sephardi Film Festival (now in its 18th year), and the name of our physical home at the landmark Center for Jewish History.
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Rabbi Angel’s featured essay can fruitfully be read as an extension of last month’s “Can Sephardi Judaism be Reconstructed?” by Professor Daniel J. Elazar. In that essay, Professor Elazar called for a “revival of a living organic Judaism…through the Sephardic way.” Rabbi Angel takes us one step further by delineating how the “Sephardic way” historically manifested itself in rabbinic practice: Jewish law was viewed “as a loving means of serving God” that tended toward “hessed [i.e., kindness], optimism, and a spirit of inclusiveness and hospitality.” Broad-minded, worldly Sephardi rabbis fulfilled their duty to care for the spiritual and material needs of their communities by disseminating Torah and attending to business affairs. Contemporary Sephardi rabbis, however, have lost touch with the classic Sephardi way, according to Rabbi Angel. Instead of maintaining the path of their forefathers, they increasingly take their cues from Ashkenazi, Haredi (i.e., ultra-orthodox) norms, and as Rabbi Angel notes, “Sephardic Hareidim, no less than Ashkenazic Hareidim, have promoted an obscurantist, authoritarian, and fundamentalist view of religion.”
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What is to be done? Rabbi Angel claims that “the community as a whole needs to take action and responsibility.” Practically this means “[w]e ought not support those rabbis and institutions which seek to ‘hareidize’ the Sephardic community, nor ought we donate our funds or lend credibility to wonder-working rabbis who foster a pseudo-kabbalistic, superstition-prone brand of religion.” Support should instead be given to those “rabbis who personify the best in our tradition… who devote themselves to the well-being of their communities in a loving and inclusive manner [and] who espouse an intellectually vibrant and compassionate Judaism.” |
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What is to be done? Rabbi Angel claims that, “the community as a whole needs to take action and responsibility.” Practically this means, “We ought not support those rabbis and institutions which seek to ‘hareidize‘ the Sephardic community, nor ought we donate our funds or lend credibility to wonder-working rabbis who foster a pseudo-kabbalistic, superstition-prone brand of religion.” Support should instead be given to those “rabbis who personify the best in our tradition… who devote themselves to the well-being of their communities in a loving and inclusive manner [and] who espouse an intellectually vibrant and compassionate Judaism.” How can we know what “the best in our tradition” looks like when there are fewer and fewer living models of that tradition around us? A good place to start learning about the classic Sephardi way is Rabbi Angel’s fascinating and edifying essay, “Models of Sephardic Rabbinic Leadership.” |
How can we know what “the best in our tradition” looks like when there are fewer and fewer living models of that tradition around us? A good place to start learning about the classic Sephardi way is Rabbi Angel’s fascinating and edifying essay, “Models of Sephardic Rabbinic Leadership.”
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Copyright © 2014 American Sephardi Federation, All rights reserved. Thank you for opting (on our websites, at an event, or by email) to receive American Sephardi Federation Programming Updates and Publications. We apologize if this message was sent in error. The American Sephardi Federation’s Sephardi House is an integral part of the Center for Jewish History (15 West 16th St., New York, NY., 10011). American Sephardi Federation | http://www.Sephardi.House | info@Sephardi.House | (212) 294-8350
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Copyright © 2014 American Sephardi Federation, All rights reserved.
Thank you for opting (on our websites, at an event, or by email) to receive American Sephardi Federation Programming Updates and Publications. We apologize if this message was sent in error.
The American Sephardi Federation’s Sephardi House is an integral part of the Center for Jewish History (15 West 16th St., New York, NY., 10011).
American Sephardi Federation | http://www.Sephardi.House | info@Sephardi.House | (212) 294-8350
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